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Monday, 31 December 2012

It's been exactly a year since the last time I did this and this time around I had over 6000 pictures from 205 games to pick from (I'm starting to seriously rethink how many screenshots I take). Anyway, these are what I consider to be be the very best and worst (mostly the worst) images from the last 12 months of Super Adventures.

Saturday, 29 December 2012

I think it's supposed to be Necromantics, not Necromantics. No vampire love story in this one.

I'm certain I played this game years ago, but I only have the vaguest memory of it. Something about an invisible wizard with white gloves. I couldn't even remember the name, I just saw the box sitting in a shop the other day and thought 'YES, THAT IS THE MISSING PIECE OF MY PAST!'. So I'm eager to find out what it actually is.

Friday, 28 December 2012

With Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 - Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie - Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa uh... Barkley 2 getting kickstarted, I thought it'd be a good time to finally play Barkley 1 and find out what the hell a 'Hoopz Barkley' actually is.

I know I swore a sacred oath to never play an RPG Maker game for the site, but this is an exception; mostly because it was actually made in GameMaker, just like Hotline Miami.

Tuesday, 25 December 2012

The last game on my Christmas list this year is Beyond Good & Evil, which wasn't quite as critically acclaimed as the other games I've played this week (and definitely didn't sell as well), but people seem to want me to play it, so I did.

I'm sick with a cold right now though and miserable so I'm likely going to be harsher on this than it deserves, especially after all the trouble I had to go through to get the PC version running right, setting CPU affinities, disabling hardware vertex whatevers etc. Plus it doesn't even support a controller on PC so I needed to set up joy2key to get around that. I'm in the mood to rant about something basically.

Sunday, 23 December 2012

Here's one you might have heard of. Today I'm checking out Chrono Trigger on the Super Nintendo, considered by many to be one of the best RPGs on the system. I've got no strong feelings about it though myself, mostly because I can barely remember anything about it.

Saturday, 22 December 2012

At last, I'm playing a Metal Gear game people might actually care about! This was the third in the main franchise, released eight years after Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, but the first to really get mainstream attention, at least in the West.

Along Tenchu: Stealth Assassins and Thief: The Dark Project, this was a big part of the '98 stealth game revolution that helped establish the genre and inspire countless other games. Therefore it is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for all those shitty forced stealth levels that started to pop up halfway through otherwise decent action games, in the same way that Shenmuecan be blamed for the curse of QTE. You opened up Pandora's box Snake!

Friday, 21 December 2012

Today I'm taking a look at Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware's spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate RPG series. Also known as 'the good one' after Dragon Age II did its best to slay the franchise when it was barely a hatchling.

Though to be honest, despite that game's obviously rushed development time, endlessly reused environments, and a story that falls apart way before the end, I actually kind of like DA2. Sure I often wondered why I was walking around the same warehouse slaying the same mages for the fifteenth time, when it was obvious that nothing I did mattered and that no one in the grimdark crapsack city I was trapped in was worth saving, but holy shit that game had nice menus. I could sit scrolling through my inventory and assigning skill points for hours.

Anyway like I said, this is supposed to be the good one, so I'm expecting a little more from it.

Thursday, 20 December 2012

It took me forever to decide what shot to use from this title screen sequence.

Okay it's taken me a decade or so to get around to it, but today I'm finally going to have a look at Ocarina of Time, the fifth game in the main Legend of Zelda series. Actually to be honest I did play this back in the day, though not for long. It didn't exactly win me over then, but I think it's about time I gave it a second chance.

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Last Christmas I spent a week playing through every Christmassy game I could find, and it turns out that they're generally ultra obscure and a bit crap (huge shock). So this year I've decided to do the opposite, and play some of the most well known and highly rated video games ever made, games that people may actually give a shit about. For the next seven days there'll be no obscure Amiga exclusives, no movie adaptations, no ZX Spectrum screenshots, and definitely no Christmas games.

There seemed to be a large Final Fantasy VII sized hole in the site, so I thought I'd get I'd get that sorted out now, rather than put it off any longer. Yeah I know that there's is actually no possible way to say anything new about this game, as the internet is saturated with every fact and opinion in every possible way you can phrase them, but I've never let that stop me before.

I have actually played this already, but fortunately I'm blessed with a terrible memory so it should be as if I'm seeing it all for the first time.

I have to admit, this isn't my first attempt at the game, as I used to play this when I was young. But I was even worse at games back then than I am now, so I probably didn't even make it past the first world.

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Okay, here's another one off the requested games list: E.V.O. Search for Eden, on the Super Nintendo, by Almanic. I have no idea what E.V.O. actually stands for, but I'm going to make a wild guess and say it probably stands for... absolutely nothing.

I've actually played this before a few years back, but fortunately I barely remember a thing about it, so it should all be new to me.

Monday, 10 December 2012

Today I'm taking a look at sandbox gangsta shooter, Saints Row: The Third, released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC way back in 2011. Because I feel like it.

I've barely seen anything of the first two Saints games, but I've played the Grand Theft Auto games so I have a few suspicions on how this is going to play out. Lots of shooting, driving around in cars, shooting while driving around in cars, and prostitutes. With guns.

Click the screenshots to see the full size images, which are in an ancient resolution I'm afraid.

Friday, 7 December 2012

I have actually played a lot of the main Dynasty Warriors games on consoles, and they're typically about running around on a field slicing through hundreds of rubbish soldiers to an anachronistic rock soundtrack. And this... isn't going to be like that, because it's a handheld game and the hardware just isn't up to it. But at least I can confirm that it does have the correct music, at least on the title screen. Plus it even sounds fairly decent for a GBA game.

Friday, 30 November 2012

At last I'm finally taking a look at much loved critically acclaimed first person shooter spy spoof No One Lives Forever, voted Game of the Year 2000 by several PC magazines.

Console magazines on the other hand ignored the game entirely that year, mostly because it wasn't released on any yet. It eventually got a PS2 port two years later, but it was apparently a bit ass. I hear the Mac port was good though!

(Click the pictures to view them at an incredible 1280x960 resolution.)

Wednesday, 28 November 2012

Here's another title I can finally cross off my game requests list: Moonstone, released for Amiga and PC way back at the dawn of the 90s. I'm positive I must have played this one before, I remember people pestering me to give it a try as it's a bit of a cult classic, but I can't remember a thing about it. I'd even forgotten about the dumb Beatles pun in the title.

Monday, 26 November 2012

Today I'm going to find out what this Biker Mice from Mars Super Nintendo game is. Seems more like 'Insect Robot Teddybears From Mars' looking at the logo.

I'm sure I must have seen an episode of the cartoon this is based on at some point, but I remember next to nothing about it. And anything I do remember probably actually came from that Avenger Penguins cartoon. But I'm sure all the crucial info I need to know is included in the game's title.

Saturday, 24 November 2012

Here's another game requested by the internet: cute Lovecraftian horror platformer They Bleed Pixels, available exclusively on Steam I believe. Sorry if you were hoping I was going to play another obscure retro game, but hey this looks a bit retro at least. Plus it only uses two buttons, just like a NES game! Kind of.

Wednesday, 21 November 2012

Today I'm having a look at Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the second attempt at making a sequel to Metal Gear, this time by the original creator Hideo Kojima. This one is considered to be the true follow up though, kicking poor Snake's Revenge out of the franchise.

Monday, 19 November 2012

I've been meaning to take a proper look at Magical Pop'n for a while now, but I keep getting distracted five minutes in and turning it off. This time though I'm determined to at least get up to a boss fight or two.

The title screen makes it look sweet enough to dissolve tooth enamel, but it'll have to try harder than that to scare me off.

Saturday, 17 November 2012

Dark Souls scares me. All the hype I've been hearing about the extreme difficulty has set it up in my imagination to be something as challenging as Super Ghouls'N Ghosts, except with loading times, and honestly that combination doesn't much appeal to me. But I was asked to play it, so I'll just have to man up and give it a fair shot. Or at least play long enough to give myself something to whine about.

I'm using DSfix to push the internal resolution (slightly) past the default 1024x720, so hopefully the screenshots won't look like ass if you click the pics for a better view.

Thursday, 15 November 2012

I played the first Wai Wai World game a few months back, and while it was alright, it had massive room for improvement. Getting all the most famous Konami characters together in one crossover platformer is a great idea, and I hope this sequel comes closer to doing the concept justice.

Friday, 9 November 2012

This is the last Bond game post for a long while, I promise you. Just two more Nightfire games and then we're done. Normal service will resume shortly.

Game 25 - Nightfire (2002)Formats: PC, Macintosh.

Finally another Bond game for computers, after 10 years of total console domination. This probably follows the same storyline as Eurocom's console version of Nightfire, but it's definitely not a straight port. This is a separate game created by Borderlands developer Gearbox Software, who should hopefully know a bit about making a first person shooter.

Thursday, 8 November 2012

Hey, Brosnan's back. Well, his likeness anyway. He'd been replaced the year earlier in Agent Under Fire by an overly smug Bond impersonator, but we're back with the real deal now.

Nightfire nightfire was released days before Die Another Day hit cinemas, but doesn't actually have anything to do with the movie. Instead it's a brand new story following on from Agent Under Fire. Poor Die Another Day never actually got a game, perhaps because the film was already basically a video game adaptation of a Bond movie.

Like the last game, this was released exclusively for the three sixth-gen consoles left standing at the time (poor Dreamcast never got a Bond game), and I'm playing the PS2 version.

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Today's Bond game is Agent Under Fire, (aka. James Bond 007 in... Agent Under Fire™, according to the side of my game box), the first game by future Dead Space developers Visceral Games. This was the first Bond game to hit the sixth generation consoles, (computers had to sit this one out again) and I'm going to be playing it on the PlayStation 2.

There was no Bond film to tie in with the year this was released, but instead of adapting one of many untapped classics like Dr No, You Only Live Twice, or Octopussy, they decided to just make up their own story instead. Probably one with lots of gun fights.

Tuesday, 6 November 2012

Only one Bond game today, the Game Boy Color adaptation of The World is Not Enough, released a year after the PlayStation and N64 games. I can only hope that the rest of the game matches the... quality of its title screen.

Monday, 5 November 2012

Two more Bond games today, one for the PlayStation, one for the Nintendo 64, and both based on the film The World is Not Enough, which came out the year before. Again computers have been completely left out, as the PC version of the game was cancelled.

Game 20 - The World is Not Enough (2000)Formats: PlayStation.

This one's by Black Ops Entertainment, the same folks who made the less than amazing Tomorrow Never Dies, but I'm hoping they've learned from that game's mistakes. Hey it's got a better title screen at least. Still no multiplayer though.

Sunday, 4 November 2012

Two more Bond games today, each released only for the Sony PlayStation, which probably annoyed a lot of N64 owning GoldenEye 007 fans. Poor Nintendo was left out this time for whatever reason. Though they did end up getting GoldenEye's spiritual sequel, Perfect Dark, so I guess they had the last laugh.

Game 18 - Tomorrow Never Dies (1999)Formats: PlayStation.

So much black.

Despite being made to tie-in with the 1997 film, this game actually came out two years later. Around time that the next movie, The World is Not Enough, hit cinemas in fact.

Saturday, 3 November 2012

It's another Super Adventures James Bond special event! I've already played through the first 10 years of 007 games (click the Game Series button then scroll down a bit to find them), and this week I'll be playing through the second decade after James Bond: The Duel brought the 16-bit era to an end, from GoldenEye to Nightfire. Well, to be honest it's more like 6 years actually (there was a bit of a gap).

Game 16 - GoldenEye 007 (1997)Formats: Nintendo 64.

It was four long years after The Duel before James Bond finally made a return to video games with an adaptation of the seventeenth Bond film, GoldenEye. Though the game actually came out the same year as the next Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies.

I've actually already played this one, and I have no idea what else I can say about it. But I suppose I should give it another look anyway, to save leaving the most important Bond game off the Bond game list.

Friday, 2 November 2012

I'm being super fancy and playing the slightly enhanced CD version that came with the Operation Scour expansion pack.

Unlike the first The Terminator, this game takes place in the war against the machines. It's going to be chocka with Terminators, hovering H-Ks and laser tanks crushing mountains of skulls. Sounds pretty cool!

Quite a few animated GIFs in this post! Let the page load and read it slowly. :)

Wednesday, 31 October 2012

On today's exciting instalment of Super Adventures, I'm taking a brief look at Snake's Revenge, the initial apocryphal sequel to Metal Gear, released only on the NES. Despite being developed by a different team, it apparently helped kick offthe proper Metal Gear franchise by inspiring the original developer, Hideo Kojima, to make a return to the series and create his own sequel to wipe this one from the canon.

In fact I get the impression that this one isn't very well liked by anyone, and it's got me curious why.

Monday, 29 October 2012

Today on Super Adventures I'm playing something recent for a change, ultra-violent action game Горячая линия Майами... uh, Hotline Miami. I had to check to see if I'd gotten the Russian version by mistake, but nope that's the actual English language menu screen up there.

The game has a retro pixelled look and no resolution options, so these screenshots are going to look pretty bad after being resized to fit the page. Of course it was never going to look like Crysis 2, it's a cheap indie release apparently designed to look like a video game from the late 80s played on a flickery TV while on drugs, but clicking the pictures will let you see them at the optimal level of crapness the developers intended.

Friday, 26 October 2012

This one was a request, which could either mean it's a hidden gem, or a steaming pile of shite someone wants to inflict on me for a laugh. I've already got a feeling I know which way it's going to go, but I'll give it a fair shot to prove me wrong.

I'm reasonably sure the game has nothing to do with Star Trek, the developers must have just thought that 'Warp Speed' sounded cool. It gives the impression that the game's going to be like Star Fox... in fast forward!

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

I've finally reached game four in the Zelda series (and the first on handhelds): Link's Awakening. Actually I'm playing the colourised DX version that came out five years later on the Game Boy Color. I've heard it's basically the same game though, except it has a little extra content and it's a whole lot prettier in screenshots.

All the other Zelda title screens so far have featured a sword placed before an epic view of mountains, waterfalls, lakes etc. but they decided to mix things up this time by replacing them with a giant... Yoshi egg?

Monday, 22 October 2012

Whoever these guys are, that's not a comforting image. Bubble is barely concealing a state of panic, sweat pouring down his head and Squeak would like to let you know that nobody will ever see this child alive again, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Hello my name is Kraed and I'm not Ray Hardgrit and yet you're reading this on his website. Isn't that weird?

Today I'm going to buck the retro trend and play a modern game. Too many companies have been releasing games that are just dumb action-fests where you travel from set piece to set piece blowing everything up. I've decided to play a game a bit more intellectual than that, so here we go. Dishonored is a game about stabbing people in violent ways.

And yes there will be spoilers(including a small one for Portal 2 perhaps - Ray), though if you can't guess the plot twists in this game I'm guessing you haven't played anything with a story more complex than Tetris.

Friday, 19 October 2012

Today on Super Adventures, I'm taking a quick look at Cursecurse of Enchantia, a point and click adventure game by Tomb Raider developers Core Design. Yeah I know I just played Beyond Shadowgate and Lure of the Temptress, but you know how it is: you spend forever waiting for an adventure game, then three show up at once.

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Today I'm taking a look at Lure of the Temptress, the first game by point and click adventure specialists Revolution, who went on to create Beneath a Steel Sky and the Broken Sword series.

You might have noticed that this is the second adventure game I'm playing in a row, after Beyond Shadowgate. Well, I figured that considering there's 68 first person shooters, 71 RPGs, and 260 platformers on the site so far, the poor point and click genre was getting a bit under-represented. Plus I felt like playing it.

Monday, 15 October 2012

Whoa, right away I know I'm onto a winner with this one. The title screen shows a guy standing on a ring of skulls, pissing all over a dragon and cheering.

Today on Super Adventures, I'm taking a look at Beyond Shadowgate, on the TurboGrafx. This one was a request, and is apparently the sequel to famously cruel 1987 adventure game Shadowgate, which I haven't played and know next to nothing about.

Friday, 12 October 2012

"An evil corporation is threatening to kill off humankind, and it's up to you as Tenka, a war-hardened resistance fighter, to stop them from putting man at the top of the extinction list. This is the real deal. This-is-the-baddest-most-realistic-kill-or-be-killed-switching-to-fully-automatic-how'd-you-like-a-nuclear-rocket-up-your-butt-?-did-I-just-feel-someone's-brain-splatter-on-my-face-?-corridor-shooting game ever built."

Sunday, 7 October 2012

Don't blame me for this one, it wasn't my idea. Looking at the title screen I suppose this is going to be about a brave ant trying to get food for his colony, while being hounded by a tiny robot wizard bug who likes harassing people with second-hand lightning from his deadly electric cigarettes.

This came out on the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, and Atari 8-bit computers, but I'm only playing it on the Speccy. My curiosity does have limits.

Friday, 5 October 2012

Today I'm taking a look at Action Man: Search for Base X on the Game Boy Color, inspired by the action figure line, and possibly based on some comic book or advert storyline, I wouldn't know. I have no idea who either of these people are, or why that guy's head's on backwards, but I'm pretty sure I'm liking this music. It sounds like it belongs on a classic NES platformer like Mega Man.

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Another requested game. Somehow looking at that title screen I'm getting the feeling that Magical Chase might be one of those 'witch on a broomstick' cute 'em up shoot 'em ups. I mean 1993 seems a bit early for it to be a Quiddich sports game, and what else can you do on a broomstick but fly around and zap things?

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The Rules

1. I must not use cheats, save states, trainers, hacking devices etc. to progress through the game. I play the game as it is and if I can't get any further then I quit. (Or run off to check a walkthrough.)

2. I must not read the manual before playing or play fan translations. I like to figure things out for myself and it's more amusing if I don't know what I'm doing.

3. I must not complete the games. I'm trying to take a quick look at interesting games, retro classics and obscure crap, show what they're like and show off the art, not make full 'Let's Play' playthroughs or reviews.

4. You must not read these posts if you're concerned about -- spoilers --.I may discuss the story and show screenshots of cutscenes and dialogue. But I try to make sure I'm only spoiling the game that I'm playing.